Quebec’s Bill 21 misapplies religious neutrality principle

Bill 21 is supposed to be about religious neutrality, but it is inconsistent with how this constitutional principle is understood in Canadian law.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2019/quebecs-bill-21-misapplies-religious-neutrality-principle/?fbclid=IwAR1OGLhFPSpVTydKUN4m5JTwxyt062XVvNCrJSXqyguH3MzNc9jr5VVqiyQ

The Quebec government has introduced its promised legislation restricting visible religious imagery in the public service. In essence, Bill 21 prohibits state employees such as prosecutors, police officers and teachers from wearing religious symbols — including head and face coverings — when carrying out their civic duties. It will apply only to new public service hires, exempting existing civil servants from its provisions. The Bill, tabled in late March, follows similar legislation passed in 2017 that banned the wearing of face coverings by individuals providing or receiving certain public services.

The new law is ostensibly supported by four principles: the religious neutrality of the state; the separation of religion and the state; the equality of all citizens; and freedom of conscience and religion. But perhaps even more significantly, Bill 21 seeks to amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the quasi-constitutional provincial statute with which all Quebec laws must comply, and which itself is subordinate only to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Although the Quebec Charter guarantees freedom of religion, its preamble will now include a declaration affirming the “fundamental importance” of state secularism.

In response to warnings from civil libertarians that these provisions will disproportionately target members of minority religious groups, Premier François Legault has insisted that the Bill is consistent with the views of most Quebecers that the state ought to be religiously neutral.